


in human gore imbued

by tsuzurao



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Horror, Body Worship, Captivity, Dark Iori Shirou, Eye Trauma, Gore, Hands, Horror, Kidnapping, M/M, Metaphors, Mouth Sewn Shut, Mutilation, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Self-Harm, Sewing, Slash, Space Junk, Starvation, Unhealthy Relationships, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsuzurao/pseuds/tsuzurao
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His hands ache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in human gore imbued

**Author's Note:**

> bye shihou is ruining my life bye bye bye
> 
> title from "The Conqueror Worm," by Edgar Allan Poe.

He takes up sewing when he turns twelve. His hands are restless with a need he cannot describe, so he takes up the needle and thread out of curiosity. It helps. For a while.

Shiro is fourteen when the ease of sewing no longer soothes the ache. Fabric and cloth are boring now, and the creativity he might have once felt is lost in repetition and practicing. He both hates and loves the needle.

He almost considers throwing out the sewing kit his uncle so thoughtful bought for him, but he does not.

The kit is still in his possession for two more years, used as much as possible. Dispassion grows in his chest, eats down through the bone.

Needles just don't quite satisfy like they used to.

 

For a year, all his sewing supplies are stuffed into the back corner of a drawer, buried under shirts.

A new ache spreads in his fingertips.

 

Anger is what finally makes him dig out all his supplies from their pseudo grave. Frustration gives him the strength to throw everything to the floor. Leftover yarn unravels and rolls across the floor whilst the box with all his needles and spools simply hits the ground with a hard thud.

Shiro stares at the kit. He leaves it laying on the floor.

 

The kit collects dust.

 

The kit collects dust.

 

The kit collects dust.

 

The kit collects dust.

 

He's eighteen years old before he thinks to pick the box up as he gathers his belongings in order to move out.

 

All Shiro has is a new neighbor and a sewing kit left unopened for years. Later that night he pulls out the old needles and a spool of blue thread. It's been so long, and for a moment, he feels thirteen again, back when sewing was still novel and interesting.

Simple is the better start to relearning an old practice, so he cuts up a couple old shirts into squares, just to see if he can at least stitch together cloth without fail.

He recalls the motions, easy like breathing. His hands don't feel so jittery, moving with the flow and actually relaxed for the first time in what seems like forever.

The needle pokes into his fingertip. A hiss passes through clenched teeth on reflex, but he keeps the needle still, the point nicked up under the skin just a bit.

And, suddenly, looking at a needle pressed to his finger, he's curious.

 

Patterns bloom on his wrists, half-started stitching and experimental threading that lead to nothing. They sit in tiny holes and dry blood and his right hand shakes too much to be precise and neat.

But fabric and cloth let him down before. Why not try skin?

As they say: out with the old, in with the new.

 

The thread rubs and stings in their little sockets.

It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it _hurts_.

 

His own skin is not enough.

He needs different skin and steadier hands.

 

Shiro goes outside on a Tuesday afternoon and knocks on his neighbor's front door. The back door is not locked.

 

His mouth is the first to be sewn shut. He yells too much for Shiro to safely allow, even if he does live alone. There's so many things he wants to try; screams subtract needed time from him.

Blood soaks the light green thread he uses. His neighbor cries and yells and whines behind his slowly closing up lips. His hands clench into tight fists, hanging immobile against twin bedposts. Shiro concentrates on the mouth and his own hands, and the rest of the world goes muffled. His fingers and the needle are smeared in red when he finally finishes.

His heart pounds hard, fast like he's run a mile, and bone previously eroded away creeps and grows back into their original shape.

Shiro's hands are calm. They do not itch with need. They do not tremble from lack of action. They are still and normal.

Dilated pupils stare back at Shiro when he finally looks up. Dark abysses which suck him in like a wide void in deep outer space.

Shiro's breath comes up short. He lights up with inspiration.

 

He takes a look through his neighbor's wallet, briefly catching part of a name on the ID (Houka) before he burns the whole thing in the trash.

The old needle set from his uncle is also thrown into the trash.

 

He makes a workstation by stripping Houka nude while he sleeps in the dead of night. Sweat clings to Houka's clothes and sticks them to his skin, but Shiro manages just fine in removing them. Everything Houka has on, even down to the underwear, is thrown away.

Houka is warm to the touch, almost feverish. Shiro traces a line down Houka's slick abdomen and stops at the navel. His fingers leave with regret firing up their nerve endings.

Shiro locks the bedroom door behind him as he leaves.

He has so many ideas.

 

There's a drawer in Shiro's room he recently dedicated to spooled thread and wrapped up lengths of yarn organized by color. Light colors first, dark colors last.

He's stuck here over the course of a few days debating on which color to use next.

 

Houka hates being fed, but he hates having his lips being sewn back together even more so.

Shiro kills two birds by cutting back on meals. He saves more thread that way. More thread means more projects.

 

Those black voids staring at him whenever he enters Houka's room makes an unpleasant tickle go up his spine and into his skull. They make his hands falter when he's trying so hard to work.

Shiro backtracks and picks out a nice shade of red thread.

Straddling Houka's bare stomach, he prepares the needle and then closes one of those black holes by force with Houka squirming like mad underneath his weight. Pressing the eyelid down against a pale cheek, Shiro says quietly, "Be still."

The skin of an eyelid is very thin, so Shiro's needle has no trouble piercing through into a more fleshy cheek.

Houka chooses that moment to lose his mind. His arms jerk and strain against their ties, tendons standing out thick with effort. Shiro barely keeps a good grip on his needle. Muffled keens and screams sound out from behind Houka's sealed lips.

Frustration makes Shiro rear the needle back and ram it far into the dark reaches of outer space.

Houka yelps brokenly behind stitched lips, his eyelid instinctively squeezing around the needle. Red bleeds out into milky white and colors in nicely like brand new dye.

Shiro sits back futher. "I _did_ tell you to stay still."

 

The needle bleeds. The thread bleeds. The bedsheets bleed. Houka bleeds. Iori bathes in dark, cherry juice red.

The voids are gone.

 

It's been two days since Shiro has so much as touched a sewing needle. Two whole days, and he's more than a little twitchy from lack. His fingers yearn for needles, spools, and skin yet unmarked.

The key slides home in the front door lock, and he sighs with relief. His bag falls to the floor in his haste to gather up his sewing material.

Houka is quiet like the dead when Shiro comes in. His heart picks up speed.

Crossing the room, he touches Houka's face, thumb rubbing over lips stitched in dark blue. "I missed you," he sighs, lips sliding across a bony cheek. Houka is silent except for his breathing.

Shiro sinks down and his hands follow the path his head makes. He kisses Houka's chest, over a fake heart he made from boredom one summer night, and a real heart encased in thin skin and meat. Houka breathes in with a shudder, sunken stomach hollowing in. Black stars made of cotton and winter born stretch out into an arch next to Houka's navel, the beginning of a universe, the countdown to planets and impending supernovas and empty black holes.

Houka trembles under his touch, weak like a newborn fawn, the fight drained out of him. Shiro shushes him with a soft breath, his lips pressed near a star, kissing wetly. He rubs skin pulled taut over ribs were flowers are just starting to bloom.

He's done so well. They've both done so well.

But Houka is still a work in progress.

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to follow and talk to me at these places!!
> 
> tumblr: [yukinoyayoi](http://yukinoyayoi.tumblr.com/)  
> writing tumblr: [nahoes](http://nahoes.tumblr.com/)  
> twitter: [heartgauge](http://www.twitter.com/heartgauge) (ask before following)


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